11 Metrics Every Marketing Manager Needs to Track

Believe it or not, this seemingly simple question puzzles many marketers and business owners I work with.

You’re running ads, and customers are buying what you’re selling, so your marketing efforts must be working, right? Not necessarily.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying this means your strategies have failed. In fact, some of your campaigns may be working great. But you can’t make any assumptions.

The only way to know for sure whether your campaigns are working is to measure the results.

By tracking certain metrics, you’ll also be able to save some money. You don’t want to dump money into campaigns that aren’t working.

Here’s the problem. Sometimes it’s difficult to directly tie one promotion to a sale.

That’s why you need to track several metrics and infer based on the results.

This statement holds true for all marketers, regardless of your industry or the size of your business. It doesn’t matter if you’re running expensive campaigns or using tactics to market your company on a budget. You need to track the results.

As I’m sure you know, there are dozens of business metrics you could be tracking. But not all of these will benefit your marketing strategy.

That was my inspiration for this guide. I narrowed down the top 11 metrics every marketing manager needs to track to be successful.

Use this guide as a reference to measure the success of your marketing campaigns moving forward. Based on the results, you’ll be able to tell what’s working and which strategies need improvement.

1. Average order value

The average order value, or AOV, is one of the first things you need to prioritize as a marketing manager.

You don’t need to look at it every day or after each campaign. AOV is a metric that you need to keep an eye on over time.

If it rises at certain times, you could potentially connect it to campaigns run during that time.

But if it falls, you’re obviously doing something you want to avoid. These issues need to be addressed.

In my consulting work, I see many businesses using only their number of transactions to gauge success. Is it great to make 100 sales in a day? It depends.

I’d rather make 50 sales for $2,500 than 100 sales for $1,000. Or even better, 100 sales for $6,000.

Do you see the difference? That’s where average order value comes into play.

You want to try to get as much money as possible from your existing customers. To do this, you’ll want to encourage them to add more items to their carts or buy other products of higher values.

Both of these will increase your AOV.

2. Customer lifetime value

The concept behind customer lifetime value is simple.

This metric will tell you the amount of money a customer will spend before leaving your business. Here is the formula to calculate it:

Customers who stay with your business for a long time become more profitable.

As a marketer, you need to make sure the lifetime value of your customers is as high as possible.

The best way to do this is by focusing on customer retention as opposed to customer acquisition, which I’ll talk about in greater detail shortly.

Yes, you want new customers. But it’s easier to market to people already familiar with your brand, products, and services.

Research shows that your existing customers will spend 67% more than new customers. This will also increase your average order value, which I just talked about.

Keep in mind customer lifetime value when thinking about your acquisition strategies as well. All too often I see businesses make the mistake of shying away from certain strategies because they don’t seem profitable.

But that’s only because they’re using the AOV to make this decision. If the AOV is less than the acquisition cost, they won’t use that acquisition strategy.

However, they’re not accounting for how much that customer will spend over time. That’s why this metric is so important to track.

Similar to sales conversions, your cart abandonment rate may not be a marketing issue.

There could be a problem with your site. But you don’t want to let your marketing efforts go to waste.

Change your promotions if you have to.

As you can see, high extra costs ranked first on the list of reasons for cart abandonment. Don’t charge your customers for shipping, and highlight that in your marketing campaigns.

You’re doing a great job of getting people to visit your site and add items to their carts. Now you just need them to convert.

5. Revenue by reference source

So, you’ve got lots of website traffic. But where is it coming from?

By tracking the revenue by referral source, you’ll be able to determine which channels are the most profitable for your business.

This is important for both B2C and B2B companies. Here’s a look at the top channels for leads and revenue on the B2B side:

You might be getting tons of traffic from one source, but if you’re not making money from those leads, you need to reevaluate your strategy.

On the flip side, maybe traffic from a certain source is not high, but the revenue from that channel is the highest.

You need to figure out how to get more traffic from your marketing channels yielding the highest revenue. At the same time, you must learn how to increase conversions and the AOV from your distribution channels resulting in the most traffic to your site.

6. Social media engagement

I’m sure social media is a huge part of your company’s marketing strategy, as it should be.

You’re posting content on all your social channels each day. That’s great. But how effective are those posts?

Customer acquisition cost is crucial for all businesses, but it’s especially important for startup companies.

Those of you with a newer company know what it’s like to have to manage a tight budget. Simply put, if your acquisition costs get too high, you’ll run out of money before you have enough customers to give you a sustainable income.

Lower acquisition costs will result in a higher ROI for your marketing efforts and make it easier for your brand to grow exponentially over time.

10. Keywords that drive traffic

Marketing managers need to prioritize SEO.

You can’t just rely on traffic coming from your distribution channels and people navigating directly to your website. Your company needs to be visible and have a high ranking through organic search results as well.

Furthermore, 39% of marketers said they planned to increase their influencer marketing budget in 2018.

And 90% of these marketers say they use engagement metrics to determine the success of their influencer campaigns. I talked about the importance of tracking engagement earlier.

Basically, you need to find out whether the money spent on influencers is generating a return on your investment.

One of the best ways to do this is by giving each influencer a unique promo code. It will make it easier for you to track which influencers are driving the most sales.

You need to cut ties with influencers who aren’t profitable and continue working with the ones driving traffic and revenue to your site. But the only way to determine this is by tracking the ROI of each campaign.

Conclusion

Nobody said being a marketing manager would be easy. Anyone could just throw together a campaign and run it.

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